Massive European night in Finland with an end to end game as City progress 5-4 on aggregate. Goals from Cian Kavanagh, Sadou Diallo and Michael Duffy. Photo: Sportsfile
Good luck, and congratulations. Us, KuPS were awful. Believe me, usually we are better than this. You won every challenge, and as unbelieveable as it sounds to anyone who has followed KuPS´ eurogames in last 6 years, you seemed to want it more. We´ve deleted Slovan Bratislava, Vorskla Poltava, Vitebsk, Astana and countless smaller clubs, Forced FC Copenhagen and Legia Warszawa to give their everything to drop us, but this time you the Derry City FC had the savage spirit and deserved to go further. Even with our line-up problems, the burn we´ve had wasn´t there, and without, it doesn´t matter who´s playing. As said, congrats, now go and kick Tobyl in the balls and go on, enjoy the moments. Cheers from a devastated KuPS -fan.
@@roryoconnor2736 Thanks. It was a classic, you can commemorate this for decades to come (as can we...). Those Derry City FC -fans who travelled to Kuopio and back helped in electrifying the evening deserve credit for their contribution. In our league games there are only few opposition fans, excluding HJK from the capital city of Helsinki; it´s a "fierce rival". Therefore most league games are quite one-sided in singing and chanting. hJK usually have 30-50 fans when they come to Kuopio. Good luck vs Tobyl tonight, kick them out! As devastated as I was after our exit, I admired your team´s unbroken spirit. KuPS is probably the 2nd biggest club in Finland (I know that means just about nothing :) ), we´ve been in top 3 for six years in a row, and we won Finnish Premier League called "Veikkausliiga", on 2019 and Finnish cup on 2021 and 2022. Since 2010 the active supporters group has grown immensely, chants, songs and so one is raising fast... We are not yet at the general UK and Irish -club level, but we are coming and growing. Also the general public, who only clap a little bit wake up to Eurogames, and by Finnish standards we are top two at least when it comes to following our team to away games and celebrating goals All that being said, go on and best of luck! ps.If someone who saw how shite our stadium´s stands are, please mock them everywhere. There has been maybe 10 attempts to upgrade it during last 15 years, and the City of Kuopio, the bureaucrats and politicians always say it will be done next year, and then nothing happens. If we´d beaten you, our next homegame should´ve been played on another city!!! It a F&¤#ing shame for KuPS, Kuopio as a city and Finland´s football´s reputation. Main stand can take 2700 people, and on one end there´s small "stand" and maximum for Eurogames is 3200 people. There are pillars in the main stand so from row 10 upwards, you´d have a limited view. The empty "Sun Stand" , wooden abomination might collapse any time and commentators must climb to a shitty wooden box above the Sun Stand, and that place is a health hazard. Sorry about the rant here, but I got inspired by the highlights of the game.
@@ivrishcon-abarth38 honestly, Irish and Finnish football are around the same level, we are nowhere near reaching the English top league, we're probably closer to Wales than anything We'd both have to travel to another stadium either way, but what annoys me though is that we have to travel a 4 hour car/bus ride to Dublin for our home matches since our stadium isn't even fit for any further matches, so we're almost playing 2 away days...
@@roryoconnor2736 Auch!Okay, I won´t whine about our stadium, at least we can play at home in the league... Our KuPS have had to play three or four Euroqualification homegames away. In games vs. Astana, Union Berlin and Young Boys Bern we played twice in Helsinki Olympic Stadium (400 km or 250 miles) and once in Turku, which is about 10% longer travel. But that´s only few games, so we are definately better of now. Maybe Derry City FC goes to the group phase, there would be money with which to build a stadium which is actually at home!
@@ivrishcon-abarth38 sorry, I initially misphrased my comment. I meant that our European matches would also need to be played at another stadium, but we can use the brandywell for our home games in the league. It does seem like we may be able to change the venue from Dublin to Belfast, which is must more convenient for our fans, but because of political conflict it may be a bit controversial. Hopefully, at some point, we are able to build a larger stadium and we would be able to reach the group stages somewhat consistently!
What a performance over the two legs. A few dodgy moments for sure but rightfully through to the next round. Well done everyone involved and our chairman of course who helps in funding us to get to this level. COME ON THE CITY🔴⚪️🔴⚪️.
Level of Irish football seems to be very clearly capable of Barclays premier league, same as Celtic/Rangers, they just don't want to join the league because they want to ''cheat'' and get easier opponents to get to Europe easier. I understand, but it is not fair for smaller clubs, when these teams are as strong as Chelsea/Arsenal/Newcastle or so on. We also saw this with HJK against Larne, they were also too strong. We didn't know the level of British football is like this everywhere. Because our teams HJK/KuPS in the recent years have been capable of incredible results beating many UCL-level teams. I consider this kind of cheating with geographic fixing